Dungeon Crawl (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 8) Read online

  I’d gone almost full nerd, I admit. The carpet in both bedrooms had a repeating sword pattern. The bathroom tile was printed with dice. The bathmats were Pokemon themed, since Pokemon cards and the like had helped pay for this place, after all. A friendly dragon dispensed toilet paper, kind of as a reminder that I might be a dragon, but I shouldn’t get all full of myself, or something to that effect. It amused me anyway. The kitchen was more tasteful with its black stone counters and stainless steel tile backsplash. I couldn’t resist hanging dragon and white tiger printed curtains I’d found online. Those had gotten a smile out of Alek when he helped me hang them.

  Alek stood up from the table. “I should get to work,” he said, bending down to kiss the top of my head.

  “Work?” Harper asked him.

  I realized we hadn’t even gotten to that yet as we talked over breakfast.

  “He’s helping Sheriff Lee as a consultant,” I said.

  “Even the human police find someone who can tell when someone is lying very helpful,” Alek added.

  “They believe you?” Harper raised her eyebrows skeptically.

  “I have proved it over and over,” Alek said as he put his breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. “Human cops watch a lot of TV. They believe I read micro-expression. Is good enough. I am good at interrogations and going with Rachel gives her safety in numbers.”

  “So you’re on the brute squad?” Harper said with a grin.

  “I am the brute squad,” Alek said with a straight face. His ice-blue eyes were full of amusement and pleasure at recognizing the Princess Bride reference and being able to complete the quote.

  “I see you’ve been getting an education while I was gone,” Harper said.

  “Yes. I am very smart now,” Alek said, his lips twitching which ruined his stoic façade.

  “I’ll give you a tour of the shop after I clean up from breakfast,” I told Harper as Alek went to put his boots on.

  “So many changes,” she said very softly.

  “So much the same,” I said.

  Harper stayed with us for less than a week. She ran into Vickie, the town vet and a wolf shifter, while having coffee at Brie’s bakery, and found out that the vet desperately needed someone part time to help answer the phone, keep an eye on sick animals, and help with appointments. Harper didn’t need the job, I didn’t think, but she took it to help out. She admitted to me she also took it in part so she could feel like she belonged here again. Hearing that about broke my heart, but I kept it to myself.

  Harper found a studio unit to rent in a converted house on the University side of town and moved in there the same day she started working for Vickie.

  First game night with her back could have been awkward, too, but somehow it wasn’t. I wove her character back into the ongoing story with ease, as though she’d never been gone. It was a relief to have her, though she still didn’t open up about what had happened while she was away beyond answering Levi’s question about if she knew any of the people who got killed at those gaming conventions with a curt “yeah, I did,” said in a tone that warned off any and all questions.

  She’d tell me when she was ready, I hoped. I wasn’t going to push her. I didn’t feel like I had the right.

  I was super relieved when after another week, she showed up on a day she wasn’t helping Vickie, flopped into one of the two overstuffed chairs I had put near the comics, pulled out her laptop and asked for the WiFi password. Looking around the shop as I listened to Harper swearing at her computer screen, I realized that now it felt like home again. Funny how sometimes you don’t notice exactly what is missing until it returns.

  I had a new employee, a college student recommended by Ezee, to watch the counter and deal with anyone while I ate lunch or did admin work or whatever couldn’t get done while I had to mind the front. Her name was Lara just like the video game character but that’s where the similarities stopped. Employee Lara was short, stocky, and black, and if she was a British millionaire, she was definitely good at hiding it. She was a history student with a minor in Spanish up at Juniper College but she’d grown up in Seattle.

  Oh, and she was another coyote shifter, like Ezee. I had a suspicion that was a reason he’d recommended her, but she turned out to be a nerd as well, though not into video games as much as comics, especially the Marvel and Image company lines. I didn’t care if she did her homework or caught up on comics while keeping an eye on the place and helping me keep the gaming areas clean, so we’d reached a good quiet equilibrium within a week of her working for me. Classes had just officially started, but she’d worked her schedule so she could cover a break for me in the middle of the day and be here in the afternoons when we were likely to actually see customers in my sleepy little town.

  Sometimes when it was a slow day, which was most days in Wylde, Alek would leave Sheriff Lee to do paperwork and return phone calls, and bring me lunch. Today’s lunch was take-out from the Chinese place. It was still warm, as it often was when the kids were returning to school, sort of a sunny fuck you to all the students who now had to be stuck inside, so we ate out in the back of the store.

  “For you.” Alek put a container of what smelled like fried rice on the counter and Lara beamed up at him.

  “Charming my staff,” I muttered as we walked out to the back where I had put in a little patio complete with a cover.

  Alek put the bag of food down on the picnic table I’d had made custom to fit the space and grinned at me.

  “I like that you have time free,” Alek said. “Keeping Lara happy is good for me.”

  I laughed and flopped onto the bench across from him. I couldn’t argue with that. With Harper back, the store fully open, and students back at the college so I had regular business again, life felt almost normal.

  Tires squealed as a car took the turn into my back parking lot a little too quickly and I had a protection shield half up before it halted. Magic hummed in my blood, burning to be free. I hadn’t had much use for it besides in training these last months.

  The car was a small blue Honda and I saw Levi’s mohawked, pierced visage in the driver’s seat as it jerked to a stop just in front of where we were. I let the spell go as Alek re-holstered the gun he’d drawn without me even noticing. My mate continued standing and I rose to go stand by him. If Levi was driving like that, something was wrong.

  “Is Junebug okay?” I asked, referring to Levi’s wife, an owl shifter who had nearly lost her life to Samir last winter.

  “She’s fine,” Levi said. He shut the car door and spun in a circle, looking around. Across from my building’s parking lot is a road, then the hardware store, a church up the little hill a ways and its parking lot, a park beyond the church, and then a bunch of houses. At noon in the middle of the week, it was quiet, with only a couple cars parked in front of Kim’s Hardware.

  Levi shook his head as though having a conversation with himself. He still had grease smears on his coveralls and forearms, looking like he’d driven over here after crawling out from under a leaky engine. I didn’t see any blood, at least.

  “Levi?” I said when he still didn’t speak. “You are freaking us out a little.”

  “Sorry,” he said. He came over and waved us toward the table. “I think I fucked up,” he added.

  Chinese food forgotten, Alek and I sat down across from Levi. I pressed my thigh into Alek’s, wanting the reminder that I had a big bad tiger here in case anything was going wrong all over again. My fingers itched to touch my talisman and see if the gem was still in place, but I resisted. It was there, I’d already checked a couple million times just over the course of the morning.

  “I was working on, well, it doesn’t matter,” Levi said. He folded his calloused hands on the table and looked between us with dark, unhappy eyes. “Two guys pulled up in an SUV. I thought they might want help, but soon as I got out there, I smelled they were shifters.” He paused and looked around again, as if satisfying himself that we were alone.

&nbs
p; We were. It was quiet. No SUVs in sight, if that’s what he was worried about.

  “So?” I said. “There are a lot of shifters in this town.”

  “Couple of wolves,” Levi said. “Not familiar with them, but that’s what I figured, right? I figure they are here because of Freyda being the Alpha and all. Lots of wolves come through, pay respects, talk about whatever wolves talk about.”

  “None of this explains fuck up,” Alek said, raising his eyebrows at Levi.

  “They asked about you,” Levi said. He tugged on one of the thick plugs in his ear. “I’m not explaining well, sorry. I can’t shake the bad feeling I got after I thought about things but maybe I’m crazy.”

  “You could have called. I do have a phone,” I said. It was inside on the counter, I realized, as I patted my pocket and found it empty. But I had finally replaced my cell phone with the most shatter-proof, damage-resistant phone and case I could find. I’d had it for seven months without frying it, falling on it, or someone shooting it. A record for me lately.

  “Junebug thought I should come explain in person, plus I wanted to make sure you were all right. Just in case.”

  “So they asked about me?” I said. What would a couple wolf shifters want with me? I mean, ignoring the part where I kind of blew up their council meeting thingy and killed a former Justice who happened to be a wolf. But Freyda, the new Alpha, had forgiven me for all that since I’d saved her and a lot of others in the process.

  “No,” Levi said. “They asked about Alek. Said they needed the advice of a Justice but wouldn’t really say why. I figured it was personal if they needed a Justice and didn’t press. They said they’d heard one was in town.”

  “They ask for me by name?” Alek said.

  “No.” Levi shook his head. “I explained that we had a former Justice, but he wasn’t doing work for the Council anymore. They said that was okay, they just needed advice. They were really pleasant, which thinking about it rubbed me weird. If they really need a Justice enough to seek one out, why be so calm? No offense, Alek, but I’ve never heard of anyone seeking a Justice who wasn’t utterly desperate or plain suicidal.”

  “No offense taken,” Alek said, inclining his head. His silky white blond hair waved around his face as he stared past Levi into some middle distance. “Death often follows us.”

  “So you told them where Alek is?” I guessed. I could see why Levi was second-guessing himself. He’d given the wolf shifters a lot of information they might not have had, and if they had violent intentions, that wasn’t a good thing. But in Levi’s defense, my brain argued, he couldn’t know what their intentions were. Maybe they really did need help, and if that was so, Levi had done the right thing.

  “Yeah,” Levi said. He splayed his hands on the table. “I told them his name and that they could find him at the game shop most likely around noon. I even thought about calling over instead, but it was hot, I had work waiting, and I just didn’t think it through. Then as I went back to work, I kept thinking how weird things had felt, running back over their manners and words. I talked to Junebug about it and came here.”

  “Well, at the risk of inviting trouble, it’s all quiet here.” I looked around and shrugged. The table was sideways to the lot specifically so nobody had to sit with their back to a parking lot. We all had a decent view of the surroundings to confirm my obvious statement.

  “Describe the men?” Alek said.

  “Mind if we eat?” I cut in, thinking about my lo mein getting cold. Harper might love cold noodles, but she and I had to agree to disagree on that.

  “No, go ahead,” Levi said to me as I started unpacking the two Styrofoam lunch boxes. He looked back at Alek and continued, “They were white men, but tanned from being outdoors a lot. Not tall, and probably brothers? They had the same cleft in their chins, I remember noticing that. Nothing too distinct, sorry. Light brown hair, brown eyes I think. Dressed in jeans, both of them. Boots looked well worn, I remember that too. They looked like working men, that’s why I figured at first they were guys whose car was having trouble. Nothing threatening about them and no weapons I could see.”

  “Why did they come to you, did they say?” I asked after I swallowed a lukewarm bit of noodle and cabbage.

  “Nope. I didn’t ask. Like I said, I wasn’t really thinking. Things have been so normal lately, I forgot to think about trouble.” Levi sighed.

  “There might not be trouble,” Alek said. His brow was furrowed, belying his words. “Did they wear rings?” he asked.

  I put down my chopsticks and looked at him, worried now more than I’d been before. From his slightly concerned expression, the description of the men had rung a bell in Alek’s mind. Slightly concerned on Alek was a panic face on someone else. I felt my own panic face creeping up.

  “No,” Levi said after he closed his eyes and thought about it for a minute. “No jewelry at all. I think that would have stood out, since they looked like a couple construction workers. I suppose they could have had a necklace hidden under their shirts since they were collared button-downs, but definitely no rings or earrings or anything.”

  I felt Alek relax as much as saw it in his smoothing brow and I told my adrenaline system to stand down.

  “I do not think I know them, then.”

  “They sounded like people you knew?” I asked.

  Alek raised a shoulder in a half shrug and opened his lunch container. “A little, but that was years ago, and they would have rings. It is good these are not those wolves.” He smiled, but it wasn’t one of his nice smiles. It was more a baring of the teeth that made me really glad he was on my side.

  “What did you do to those wolves?” Levi said, unconsciously leaning back from Alek. I didn’t blame him.

  “I threw their brother off a building,” Alek said. “Also, I cut head off their Alpha.” He picked up a chicken leg and ripped the meat off the bone with his even, white teeth.

  Levi looked from Alek to me. “Is he quoting a Die Hard movie?”

  “What is this movie?” Alek looked at me.

  “I haven’t shown those to him yet,” I said. “Bruce Willis,” I told Alek. “We can’t watch them until Christmas though, cause they are holiday movies.”

  Levi snorted as Alek shrugged and tore more chicken off his drumstick.

  “It’s hard to tell when you are joking, Alek,” Levi said.

  “I do not joke,” Alek said. “There was a case years ago, I worked it with another Justice. Little girls going missing, then found half-eaten. The humans were very upset, starting to ask many questions the Council does not want humans asking. We tracked down a pack of wolves, found they were hiding that their Alpha had gone insane. He’d killed some of the pack already for arguing. In fight with Alpha, one of the brothers came and tried to defend. I killed him. He had two other brothers in pack, but they were not present for much of this, so they were allowed to live.”

  Shifter justice. It’s no cake walk.

  I looked around. The sun was still shining. Across the parking lot and street, an old man walked out of the hardware store with a cane in one hand and a roll of electric fencing tucked under his other arm. He put the fencing in his trunk, went around the side, opened the door, got in, and drove away. A swallow swooped and looped overhead.

  Normal life out there. Eating noodles and discussing murder in here. Two worlds, side by side. This was my life. I scooped another mouthful of noodles up with my chopsticks.

  “Good thing it wasn’t them,” Levi said after a minute of us chewing.

  “Good thing,” Alek agreed. The look in his eye said he’d still wasn’t totally sure.

  “Thank you,” I said to Levi. “Call if you see them again? Did you get a plate number?”

  “No,” Levi said. Then he perked up and smiled. “I have that new camera though, outside the shop. It might have caught their plate from the angle they pulled in at. Might even have their faces. I’ll copy the video and get it to you?”

  “Bring it t
o the Sheriff’s office,” Alek said. “I will be back there by two. Rachel might have ideas. She keeps eye on shifters who come through.”

  That settled, I offered Levi a soda, but he refused and got up, saying he really should get back to work. On instinct, I got up too and went over and hugged him.

  “You didn’t fuck up,” I said softly to him as his arms came around me in surprise, returning the hug with a quick squeeze. “We can’t live in high alert mode. It isn’t healthy.”

  “Thanks, Jade,” Levi said, squeezing me again.

  “You going to look into this?” I asked Alek as I watched Levi drive away.

  Silence greeted me and I turned to look at my mate. He sat with a chicken leg halfway to his mouth, one eyebrow raised.

  “Okay,” I said. “Stupid question. Just be careful.”

  “I am always careful,” Alek said, looking wounded.

  I went back to enjoy lunch with him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were in the calm before the storm now. I regretted that thought as soon as it formed, hearing again the smooth whisper of Samir’s voice in my mind telling me it was not the calm, but the eye.

  The eye of the storm. Even as the thought clicked into place I shoved it away again. “Shut the fuck up,” I told the phantom in my head and then I went to enjoy the hell out of my totally normal lunch in the sunlight.

  The gem in my D20 talisman was still there, hard under my thumb. Not that I checked because I was worried at all, nope. It was just habit. Only habit.

  Alek told me that night he’d reviewed the tapes with Levi, but they hadn’t pulled a full plate and the men hadn’t been within camera frame. Levi was going to adjust his camera in case they came back and had been all apologies that the video wasn’t good for much. He’d installed it mostly for the insurance benefits and visual deterrence. The kind of trouble we had generally wasn’t the type that was caught on camera or that you’d take to the human police if it were, so I didn’t blame him.